


Summer and Winter

by Sigil_of_House_Throckmorton



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blow Jobs, Creampie, Cunnilingus, Doggy Style, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Face-Sitting, Fluff and Smut, Group Sex, Legs on Shoulders Sex, Prone Bone, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 16:45:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8998828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sigil_of_House_Throckmorton/pseuds/Sigil_of_House_Throckmorton
Summary: Queen Margaery Stark is proud of what she has accomplished at Winterfell, cultivating civilization in an otherwise barbaric land. Things are going very well indeed – until the King’s bastard brother returns home with a Wildling bride.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The setting and characters of the series A Song of Ice and Fire belong to George R. R. Martin. I make no profit from this work, and will remove it should I be contacted by GRRM or any of his legal representatives.
> 
> Acknowledgements: The original idea for this story was inspired by _[Something Missing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/956366)_ by [harmon99](https://archiveofourown.org/users/harmon99/pseuds/harmon99). I wanted to go through a situation where two couples would have sex together, but as this story was written the original plot bunny has become almost unrecognizable. The alternative universe setting was inspired by _[The Conquest](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3636984)_ by [DolorousEdditor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DolorousEdditor/pseuds/DolorousEdditor) (come back to us, Edd!), although it is by no means identical, and this is generally a much less serious story.
> 
> A/N: There is probably too much "Fluff" in this story for most people, especially if your primary goal is to get to the sex. I absolutely realize that this kind of text is largely drivel, but I had too much fun writing it not to post it in its entirety.
> 
> That being said, this story was created as a vehicle for pure, unadulterated smut. If you are offended by explicit sexual content, turn back now or yield to your fate. You have been warned.

Awakening enveloped in satin bedsheets while otherwise nude was a luxury to which Queen Margaery Stark was rapidly becoming accustomed. Bedmates were a necessity for a royal princess of the Reach, and bedmates necessitated proper underclothes and nightshifts – Margaery learned from a young age that though they pretended to be her friends, they would always tattle to the septa – or worse, to _father_ – if she did something improper.

Her father the king was a proper man, as upright as they came… although in Margaery’s opinion, that was because he had no capacity to conceptualize any other way of living. Mace Tyrell, the King of the Reach, bustled about with a simple geniality that was infectious and, so long as he followed grandmother’s advice on statecraft, the Reach continued to prosper.

The Queen of Thorns, the dowager Queen Olenna Tyrell, was not nearly so proper as she led others to believe. Some of Margaery’s earliest memories were the dowager queen coming to her nursery and playing games with her. Grandmother’s games were different than the games her nursemaids would have her play, but she enjoyed them more because if she won in a clever way, grandmother would sneak her a treat before dinner. When Margaery pointed out that such things were against the rules her governess had set, the queen chastised her and explained that the rules of the governess were only important if the governess knew she were breaking them. This was not a proper idea at all, and Margaery loved it all the more for that.

As she grew into a young woman, Margaery learned of all kinds of things that were completely improper for a princess to know, taught mostly by her grandmother and occasionally by her eldest brother, Prince Willas. It was on her eighth name day that the dowager queen explained to her the secrets of men, women, and the marriage bed. Margaery was disgusted at first, like any proper princess should be, but this abated once grandmother explained how wonderful it could be if one were careful, and more importantly how much you stood to gain if you were clever about it. Queen Olenna Tyrell had brought down the Gardener Kings, who had ruled the Reach for thousands of years, not with armies or swords or knives in the dark, but with gossip, intrigue, and the power between a woman’s legs.

This was real power, Margaery thought.

Even then, she was still forced to wear a nightshift and share her bed with a cousin or another lord’s daughter, to guarantee her suitability for whatever marriage her family needed her to make.

The betrothal between herself and Robb Stark was signed into being when she was nine years old, although it was not nearly as much of a surprise then as it would have been not a year before.  Tywin Lannister, King of the Rock, had allied with the King Balon Greyjoy of the Iron Islands in a surprise strike against the rich lands along the Mander, plundering the entirety of the last autumn harvest for themselves. Things were looking grim by the eighth moon of the siege of Highgarden, surrounded by Lannisters and blockaded by the Iron Fleet at the Mander’s mouth. Even grandmother had been distressed, drafting frenzied letters attempting to prevent the Storm King and his Lannister wife from joining in the Rape of the Reach, as the war had become known. It was a surprise to everyone when an army of forty-thousand Northmen rode in on the tails of a blizzard to smash the Lannister host against Highgarden’s walls while a fleet flying Manderly colors cruised the river of their namesake for the first time in over a thousand years, fighting the Ironborn ship for ship and routing the reavers at heavy cost. The King in the North won the admiration of all of the Reach that day, and was lauded as a hero when, rather than pressing his advantage to feed his frozen kingdom and forsaking the Reach to starvation, he proposed an alliance instead: ironwood timber, ice, and coal for grain, fruit, and wine of the next harvest, and all others to come; a pact of mutual protection against aggression from the Rock or Pyke; and a set of marriages for permanence, son to daughter and daughter to son, for the benefit of both realms.

And now, coming into her sixth month as a married woman, Queen Margaery had at least one of the simple freedoms that were her heart’s desire – a soft mattress made out of sheep skins, cleaned but unshorn to keep it soft. Satin sheets and goose-down pillows. A linen quilt, beautifully embroidered and lined with lace. All of it cocooning her naked skin.

The beddings were one of the few truly pleasant parts of her life as the Queen consort of the North. Both the bed linens and the more carnal type of bedding, if she were honest with herself.

The mattress, sheets, pillows, and quilt had been a gift from her family at her wedding feast, intended to show what luxuries the North stood to gain from their new trade partnership with the Reach in a way that the prince would not be able to help but recall fondly whenever it was he would inherit. King Eddard had lauded the gift graciously, and even japed in his own somber way about the amount of enjoyment his son would find while using them. Her husband, however, had a disappointing practicality, and insisted that unless she wanted to freeze during the night, it was best to bed down in furs or wool instead.

She resisted the idea that first night, and giving Prince Robb Stark her maiden’s gift on a comfortable bed was certainly worth the effort, in her opinion. At least, until he left her chambers soon afterward, citing the chill. He had invited her to share his warmer furs in his personal chambers, but Margaery was much too stubborn to admit fault in her selection of bed linens. She could admit to herself that, in hindsight, this behavior had been ridiculous, but she would never admit that to her husband now.

The floors of her chambers were warm to the touch, as were the walls thanks to the ingenuity of the ancient Brandon the Builder, supposedly the first Stark and founder of their house during the Age of Heroes. However, the chamber she had personally selected incorporated large windows overlooking the godswood and training yard, and even the oaken shutters and thick tapestries the Starks provided could not keep the room from succumbing to the late winter chill. After chattering her teeth in misery that entire first night, she relented and used Northern furs and sheets from then on. It also meant wearing nightshifts, to keep the itch of the wool sheets off her delicate skin while sleeping, but suffering the confines of clothing was a far better fate than blue toes and a sore jaw come morning.

It was only recently, now that King Eddard was properly entombed beneath Winterfell and King Robb crowned in his place in the midst of the spring thaw, that the weather was warm enough to justify using her superior beddings. Moving her rooms to the royal suite formerly belonging to the dowager Queen Catelyn Stark certainly helped as well – the windows were smaller, but high to let in light, the hearth was larger to support a bigger fire, and here the walls were as warm as nice mead, making the whole room feel like Highgarden in spring. Well, an early spring, in truth, but spring nonetheless.

Regardless of how it happened, awakening enveloped in satin bedsheets while otherwise nude was a luxury to which Queen Margaery Stark was rapidly becoming accustomed. Satin sheets for the warm summer weather, naked after being ravished by her king and husband the night before, and utterly at peace for the first time in ages.

King Robb had fallen asleep next to her the previous evening, although he was nowhere to be found at the moment. She did not begrudge his absence – the tables had turned, and now rather than sleeping in her bed for company and warmth as he had in the earlier days of their marriage, the king now became quickly overheated in her new chambers and would slip out in the middle of the night. Despite half a year of marriage, they were still opposites in a manifold of ways, temperature intolerances being only the foremost of many.

An arena that they seemed very compatible, however, was their marriage bed – well, not the bed itself, but the activities they pursued together within it. Aside from actually sleeping, in which case they differed. But the sex was fantastic, much better than Margaery was told to expect.

Privileges associated with being the Princess of the Reach were many, and discretion among burly stable boys or lithe and muscular young guardsmen was nearly a certainty, once the correct pressures were applied in the correct places and occasionally on the correct people. Margaery knew how to pleasure men before her marriage, and how to pleasure herself as the need arose, but had been smart enough to keep her maidenhead intact for when it was needed. Prince Robb Stark, on the other hand, had come to their marriage bed as green as the first shoots of spring grass. Despite leaving her alone and cold after their first night bound in the vows of the Seven, he frequented her bed and proved to be an apt leaner.

So apt, in fact, that Margaery had yet to even consider taking other lovers. Not that there were a shortage of options – guardsmen and groomsmen, stewards and stable boys, even the occasional lord or merchant flirted outlandishly with her, frequently in front of the king himself. She could hardly blame them – a young and beautiful southron rose, the pinnacle of fine breeding and high society, she was bound to draw additional suitors even as a married woman. Grandmother had assured her that once her maidenhead was broken, no man could prove her guilty of infidelity without an obvious bastard showing itself to the world – and that is what moon tea was for, after all. She continued to take it every month, even now, though for entirely different reasons than whence she began.

Most husbands avoided their wives during pregnancy, she had been instructed; they were more likely to take a mistress then than at any other time during a marriage. She told herself that she was simply creating a strong foundation for their bond, securing her husband so fiercely to her that he would never think to seek another woman’s bed, but the true reason was simpler: she loved the way it felt. She loved the way his eyes drank in her body, the way his hands captured her form, the way he felt moving and pulsing inside of her. The way he collapsed around her after his climax. The way he always brought her to her own release, once she had shown him how. Margaery was simply too selfish to relinquish the pleasures Robb was able to provide so soon in her marriage, when she had years to present him with an heir.

Prince Brandon was a boy of nine now, training in the yard with padded armor and blunted swords with other young boys and noble heirs. More than that, he was an adept pupil, and had the makings of a fine king should something terrible happen to her husband. Little Prince Rickon was wilder, but then what five year old boy would not be? With two sisters in line after that, Margaery could probably wait a full year before falling pregnant while avoiding undue suspicion. The Stark name was secure, for now, and as Queen of the North she had every right to enjoy the benefits of the situation while she was able.

She had even managed to rid the castle of the king’s beloved bastard brother, convincing him to ride off for vengeance against the wildlings that had killed King Eddard while he was traveling to settle a matter with Lord Karstark. With any luck he would be killed in the course of the campaign, solving two problems at once. Jon Snow had had a peculiar sense of honor for a bastard, and he insisted on riding out to seek justice in King Robb’s name with only the mildest suggestion from her – that Robb had more important duties here at Winterfell, securing his new crown and bedding his new wife. It had been much harder to convince Robb to not ride out himself as the wolf-blood mingled with hot grief in his veins, but Margaery knew women’s ways to calm men’s blood, and her will won out in the end.

Queen Margaery Stark could now look forward to another bright, if cool, summer day spent in the presence of her ladies in waiting. Princess Sansa and her friends were always a pleasure to entertain, still girlishly naïve about the ways of the world and in that giggly stage that just precedes womanhood. Sansa was ever so sweet and innocent, but would likely struggle in the caustic and sometimes dangerous political climate in the Reach when she reached her age of majority and married Willas. While Jeyne Poole and occasionally Beth Cassel thought they could be deceptive or manipulative, Margaery had no trouble discerning their intent and the schemes were never of much consequence in the first place. It was almost a game, keeping them out of trouble with their septa and trying to drill some sense of realism into them while maintaining their utmost admiration – which, frankly, was the least troublesome part of it all when all the girls dreamed of where knights, flowers, and dances, for all of which the Reach was famous.

Princess Arya was the clever one of the family, although her age and lack of a proper tutor made her far more difficult to deal with than the others. Arya would have greatly benefited from knowing someone like Queen Olenna, Margaery suspected. It was unfortunate that she could not get the girl to trust her enough to begin giving lessons on such sensitive subjects herself. She had only earned the youngest Stark daughter’s grudging respect when she had invited her for a day of riding and falconry in the fields bordering the Wolfswood. The girl was half horse, and would have made an excellent racer for Willas back in Highgarden. She had become solemn after her father’s death, and even worse when the bastard rode off to war, but that wound only needed time to heal. In the end, she remained a project for Margaery to work on, and there was time.

A few other young women rounded out court life at Winterfell, representing the interests of the houses that had sent men with Jon Snow to avenge King Eddard. Lady Wylla Manderly had a dominant personality and an acerbic wit, but was delightfully receptive when Margaery introduced fashions or trends with a southron flavor, already having ordered a similar wardrobe to be made for herself at her home in White Harbor. They became fast friends saying prayers in the sept, along with Queen Catelyn and Princess Sansa. Lady Alys Karstark favored the old gods and generally had a quiet way about her, but she was kind and genuine, and could sing music that brought tears to the eyes. She even allowed Margaery to make her curly, typically unbound hair presentable. Lyra Mormont was the odd one out here, often refusing a dress for breeches and leathers and a practicing with a mace rather than a sewing needle. She kept to the training yard most days, but Wylla had corresponded with her since their girlhoods and maintained a close friendship with the bint despite all of the girl’s uncouth habits.

Despite the anomaly, Margaery was proud of herself for the progress she was making in civilizing these ladies. Winterfell was no Highgarden, but she was certain that in a few years any visitors from her family would gasp at the differences she had wrought since her wedding day. Grandmother would be proud.

Lacking further reason to laze abed, Margaery donned her dressing gown and rang the bell for her lady’s maids. They pulled a hot bath for her, scrubbed her pink, rinsed her hair with scented oils and dried her with soft clean rags. They dressed her in a loose silk gown, grass green stylishly accented with blues and yellows that letters from her cousins assured her were popular in Oldtown and Highgarden. King Robb had not been pleased when he reviewed the cost of her summer wardrobe with his steward, but a demonstration of its benefits changed his mind sufficiently for her to keep it. Her maids twisted and curled her hair into an eloquently complex design, all loops and braids and ties to the back of her head.

Finally, her lady’s maid brought her this a cup of steaming water soaked through with tansy, wormwood, and mint, mixed with a drop of pennyroyal, and soothed with a tincture of honey. She drank it in a single mouthful and thought of it no more.

A fresh shipment of fruit and grains had arrived in White Harbor a week ago, which meant the tithe owed to Winterfell had arrived yesterday. Queen Margaery broke her fast on thick wheat bread, berry preserves, bacon, porridge, and a pear with the dowager Queen Catelyn accompanying her in the solar of her royal apartments. The lamentable woman still dressed entirely in black, four months after her husband’s death. It was a pity, considering that she was still comely for her age, and would likely be able to find a handsome lover if she only looked.

“A raven was recovered in the night, apparently blown off course for some time by the recent storm,” the dowager queen said abruptly, snapping Margaery out of her good mood.

“What news did it bring, good-mother?” she replied. Although crestfallen as ever now, in the first few months of her marriage Queen Catelyn Stark had taken to Margaery’s considerable charms and the two had become quickly familiar and friendly in addressing each other. Even in her grief, the dowager queen seemed to take solace that her son had married a nice, southron girl. “Dark wings, dark words, I fear?”

“Fortunately no, from what Maester Luwin was able to recover of the message. Considerable water damage, I was told.” The widow took a sip of her tea. “Jon Snow returns successfully from his campaign beyond the Wall.” The inflection in her voice made it very clear that Jon Snow’s success was not nearly so fortunate as was polite to discuss. _Dark wings, dark words indeed_.

“Have some cheer then, good-mother! Your husband is avenged, the Mother grant him mercy,” she replied, attempting to bolster her matronly companion’s mood.

“You still have much to learn in the ways of love, daughter of my heart. Vengeance is not a woman’s desire. Would that it were my love riding back to me whole and strong, or even sick and wounded but alive, than his bastard tainting his memory by gathering glory about himself.” The curses dripped off Catelyn’s tongue. The hollow eyes stared at the cup and spoon in her hands. “I seem to have lost my appetite. I will be in my rooms if you have need of me,” she said as she excused herself.

Queen Margaery sent for her ladies after she finished her meal and sat them to embroidery with her to pass the time. Lady Alys was excited at the news of the party’s eminent return, and appropriately so – her father and all three of her brothers had answered Jon Snow’s call to arms. Lady Wylla was eager to greet her knightly uncle. Even Lyra, mending her leather armor at the edge of the room rather than doing lady’s work, confirmed her anticipation for seeing her mother, older sisters, and lord cousin once more. None were more enthusiastic for the army’s return, however, than Princess Arya. Upon hearing the news she actually jumped, squeaking like a startled mouse. She stuck her shaking fingers so many times in the aftermath that Margaery instructed her to put down her handkerchief, lest she bleed on it. Gentle coaxing kept her in the room socializing rather than wandering off to do… whatever it was she did when not in her lessons or attending to the queen.

A steward knocked soon enough to tell them that outriders for the party had been spotted and that they were to make themselves presentable to receive them in the courtyard. The young women tittered about, fixing each other’s hair and straightening their dresses. In a few moments, King Robb arrived to escort them for the reception with both princes in tow and a small army of noble wards to provide proper escorts for the rest of her ladies.

The king smiled when he saw her, and it broadened when she sashayed her hips as she approached him. He was far more handsome than she had dreamed she would find her husband to be, especially when her father announced her betrothal to the Stark heir. King Eddard had not been much to look at – stocky, cool features, long face, and a hard jaw. Thank the Seven Robb took after his lady mother. His hair and beard were the color oak leaves turned before they fell in autumn, framing a softer but still defined jaw, wide cheeks, and delightful blue eyes that sparkled like water running through a warm brook. There were already some crowsfeet beginning to show at his eyes, despite his young age, but it only took a day for Margaery to determine that this was due to his near-perpetual smiles and laughter. Robb was jovial where Eddard was stern, expressive where the other was placid. He was also half a head taller than his father had been, with thighs that looked as though they could break a log in half between them and a back that had created a stain in her smallclothes when she ‘accidently’ saw him shirtless in the training yard a few days before her wedding. King Robb Stark was a beautiful man, and he was _hers_.

“Congratulations, dearheart. The Lord of Bones will bother you no more, and your brother returns home victorious,” she preened at him, pecking him quickly on the lips before accepting his offered arms. They began the walk toward the entry.

Her husband’s face soured some. “I should have gone with him. It was my justice to give more than any other man, although better it be Jon than someone else entirely.” He kept his voice quiet to avoid eavesdropping, but confided in her all the same. “Hardly a man was lost, from what our scouts tell me. The force comes back in full, and I look a fool for staying behind.”

Robb was right to be upset. The gamble of sending Jon Snow away with only four hundred men seemed worthwhile at the time, but now Margaery had allowed – no, _given_ – Jon Snow the glory that should have been her husbands. Such a prestigious victory might impress any rebel lords looking to usurp the Starks but in need of a figurehead. The Bolton uprising was still fresh in the minds of the people here, despite occurring before Robb and Margaery had even been born, and allowing a bastard to obtain prestige was the worst possible outcome for the security of her eventual children should rebellion rear its head once more. It was nice to hear Robb taking the matter of his bastard brother seriously, for a change.

She said some soothing words to him as they lined up on the steps of the Great Keep, and his mood seemed to improve. The dowager queen was conspicuously absent, but that was to be expected, in Margaery’s opinion. Soon enough Robb slipped on his stoic king’s face as the ground began to rattle and men and horse poured through Winterfell’s eastern gate. Knights with all manner of sigil on their shields rode in the van with Manderly livery and banners, followed by a company of equally well armed heavy horse bearing the white sun on black of the Karstarks mixed with only a few showing the black on green Mormont bear, finishing with a group of one hundred men wearing grey on white. They circled once to allow everyone through before breaking formation to greet family members and friends.

Some commotion was occurring at the gatehouse, too distant for Margaery to see. Finally, a mop of brown hair sitting atop a man in unadorned grey steel, who in turn sat atop a strong courser, appeared at the threshold. He trotted in and made his way towards the king. He carried a burlap sack in his arms, which seemed peculiar to Margaery, especially when it squirmed and yelped with every jostle. Far more concerning, however, was what appeared _behind_ Jon Snow, something so terrifying Margaery had neglected to even consider it a possibility. Despite her grandmother’s warnings to always plan for the worst possible outcomes, she had no way of guessing that sullen, moody Jon Snow would return victorious from a military campaign unbloodied and with _a woman_ riding astride behind him.

Queen Margaery squeezed her husband’s arm tightly before she could calm her rising sense of panic. When Jon handed the bundle off to a steward and climbed off his mount she merely wished he would fall and break his neck, but when his companion ignored the groomsman’s hand and dismounted _by herself_ , Margaery wanted to scream.

Matters worsened considerably when Margaery realized that the woman was a beauty. She was dressed all in immaculate white, marred with not one spot of dirt from the road. Her honey-blonde hair rested in one thick braid across her shoulder, looking like liquid gold over her pristine tunic and snow bear cloak. Her breeches were tucked into high leather boots that seemed both practical and stately in a way Margaery imagined only fine men could look before now. Her eyebrows were thick, but her cheeks were high and refined. Her nose was dainty, but her lips were pleasantly full. The most startling of her features were her eyes, Northern grey with blue flecks around the edges of her irises. She looked like the undisturbed, pure-white first snow of winter.

Margaery hated her.

Robb could not have been more pleased.

“Brother! I thought I charged you to bring justice to our father’s murderer, not find yourself a woman! Go on then, introduce us, won’t you?” he asked with obvious mirth in his voice.

Jon Snow seemed a bit anxious, but could not hold back his grin when he spoke. “I didn’t find her as much as she stole me, if you can believe it. King Robb, allow me to introduce you to Val of the Free Folk.”

Val smiled, giving Margaery a perfect view of her impossibly straight teeth. “It is a pleasure to meet the Stark in Winterfell,” she said, standing in front of Robb and looking him in the eye, nodding her head only slightly. It was too much indignity for Margaery to stomach.

“And I am his wife, Queen Margaery Stark. I am not sure what education you were provided with the… _Free Folk_ , but I can tell you are unaccustomed to addressing royalty. You may address my husband as ‘King Robb’ or ‘Your Grace’, and it is customary to kneel on your first meeting.”

Val’s smile slipped away and Jon’s good mood faltered. Without even the slightest intonation of embarrassment in her voice, Val replied, “I will address you in whatever manner pleases you most, but I will not kneel to anyone, _Your Grace_.” The inflection on the last two words was so slight that Margaery was sure she was the only one to understand the mockery in it. The situation was becoming worse by the moment.

Even Robb’s amiable expression was now gone though, replaced by wide eyes fraught with worry. After a moment, he ended his shocked silence. “The Free Folk? Jon, what have you done?”

“We have many things to discuss in your solar, Your Grace,” he acknowledged with a nod. “But here and now, I have gifts that should be given sooner rather than later.” He waved over the steward from earlier, still carrying the yipping, writhing burlap sack. Reaching carefully inside of it, he pulled out a puppy. Rather, what looked like a puppy proportionally and acted like a puppy in its mannerisms, but was in fact much too large to be any _normal_ kind of puppy at all.

“Just this morning, we heard some mewling just off the road,” he offered in explanation, setting the scrawny albino thing down and drawing other, more typically colored beasts out of the confused steward’s grasp. “Val spotted a direwolf dead in a nearby clearing. Killed by a piece of bone snapped in her jaw, best we could tell. But these little rascals were still trying to suckle at her teats. I thought them a good omen – one for each of us, and all that…” Jon trailed off, flush rising in his cheeks. “If I’ve over stepped in this… well, we seem to have much to discuss regardless, Your Grace…”

Robb looked at the bastard harshly and seemed likely to give him the reprimand he most certainly deserved, but stopped and looked down to his feet in surprise. One of the beasts, the largest of the bunch, was nuzzling against the king’s leg and staring up at him like a young squire might admire his first whore. Much to Margaery’s disgust, Robb picked up the ragged thing to look at it closer.

“Robb, you cannot be serious–” she began, before being rudely interrupted.

“Jon! You brought us direwolves for pets!?” little Princess Arya shouted, breaking out of line and kneeling in the mud to gather another of the pitiful beasts into her arms. “You will let us keep them, won’t you Robb?” she pleaded to her older brother.

The king looked at his excited sister as Princes Brandon and Rickon abandoned their proper stations to collect a direwolf of their own before turning to look at the pup he held at arm’s length, and then finally looking at her. Margaery did her best to look stern, but Robb made an apologetic gesture and relented, much to the delight of his siblings and to her own disbelief.

She made to protest, but was stopped again – this time be the normally more well-mannered Stark princess with yet another wild animal in her arms. “Your brother Willas breeds dogs, does he not Queen Margaery? Since they are without a mother, could you show us how to nurse them? The method cannot be terribly different between dogs and direwolves.” She looked terribly young then, despite being one-and-four.

Against the wishes of the princes and younger princess, Margaery would fight to have these dangerous animals put down quietly behind the kennels. But when even Princess Sansa, her brother’s betrothed, wanted a direwolf pup for her own, Margaery knew that no amount of maneuvering would sway Robb in his decision. So, like any good queen, she adapted to the situation as it stood.

“Of course, dearest Sansa,” she said, smiling wide with hopefully-not-too-transparent false sincerity. “We can use goat’s milk and a rag twisted just so to nurse them. Gather your younger siblings and I will show you all how to do so in the kitchens, so that your brother the king can meet with Jon Snow.” She shot Robb a meaningful look. “They have much to discuss indeed.”

If Robb understood her threat, he pretended not to notice. Margaery ended up spending a great deal of time helping the younger Stark children bond with and learn to take care of their new ‘pets’. She was still unconvinced of the benefit of keeping deadly predators within the walls of Winterfell, but it was the first time since King Eddard’s death that Prince Brandon smiled or Prince Rickon stayed still for more than a moment, and those things did count for something.

It was not until much later, after an impromptu feast for the returning men, that Margaery was able to speak to Robb in private. The news did nothing to improve her rapidly worsening mood.

Jon Snow had challenged the wildling commander Rattleshirt, the so-called Lord of Bones, to single combat, rather than slaughter the savages that had been testing the defenses of the Wall for years. The barbarian leader thought himself to somehow possess a sense of honor and accepted the ultimatum. After a bloody bout, the bastard disarmed his opponent and took his head in the name of King Robb Stark as an enormous host of wildlings looked on. However, upon seeing the number of starved women and children among them, rather than scatter them back into the frozen wastes as they deserved, the bastard saw an opportunity to elevate his own standing and offered nearly one hundred _thousand_ of them passage into the North. Despite their refusal to kneel and their insistence of keeping to their own customs amongst themselves, the bastard promised them lands to settle along the western coast, between the Stoney Shore and Sea Dragon Point. Which King Robb, in his poor judgement unduly affected by his reprehensible affection for his bastard brother, upheld.

“And who among them will be their lord, to collect their taxes and give them your justice when they steal crops and rape crofter’s daughters from the surrounding lands?” Margaery protested, feeling the situation spiral further and further into the abyss with every passing moment.

“There is only one man that has both their respect and my trust,” Robb told her in the manner one speaks to a recalcitrant child. It infuriated her, but not quite as much as what he said next. “Jon Snow will become their lord, and he’ll marry Val to secure the alliance. I’ll have to legitimize him, of course.”

Queen Margaery could not remember exactly what happened next, but the king was barred from her bedchambers for several days and the servants were skittish in her presence. Some of the housemaids blamed it on her moon blood, which had arrived about when it all started. When a page delivered a formal invitation to the wedding of Jon Frost and Val of the Free Folk – _Frost, he might as well have kept the name Snow!_ – she realized how childish she must have seemed and resolved to show these brutish Northerners and wildlings the graciousness of true royalty. She would be unfailingly polite to the couple, but let them know in no uncertain terms that they would never be welcome within the walls of Winterfell for the rest of their days. _I will not allow a bastard and a cannibal to shame me. I will make grandmother proud._

\\._.-~.^.~-._./

 

The queen graciously invited her husband to return to her bed with a note to his page, but she found it cold that evening, and cold it stayed. If the king valued his relationship with his untrustworthy bastard brother over her own company, that was his misfortune. The nights were difficult without her royal husband, and frigging her own cunt and clit with lonely fingers no longer satisfied her after having known a husband’s touch, but his absence gave her plenty of time for other pursuits. All manner of seamstresses and tailors paid visits to her rooms in order to prepare a gown for the wedding that would remind all of the king’s bannermen and smallfolk why _she_ was the queen, and why _she_ deserved their respect and admiration. All of her maids agreed when she showed them the dress she had commissioned, and even Lyra Mormont seemed impressed when she presented the completed product to her Northern handmaidens.

And so she found herself standing at the entrance to the godswood, awaiting her husband to escort her within. Queen Margaery wore a flowing, pure white dress bordered with fine grey velvet and silver filigree. The grey direwolf of house Stark stood artfully rampant about each of her separated breasts, while the neckline dipped to expose her smooth, creamy sternum. The coronet of hammered bronze and sharp iron mixed elegantly with the brown curls of her hair.

At last, King Robb Stark showed himself. He was also dressed in his most formal attire, grey breaches and shirt with fine boots and a white doublet. His polished bronze and iron crown reflected spring sunlight onto his auburn hair, making it blaze. Even though he had been ignoring her for a sennight, she could not help but smile at his comely appearance.

Unfortunately, he did not seem nearly so excited to see her. He ignored her greeting, pausing only long enough to take her arm before escorting her into the godswood behind the last of the straggling guests.

Margaery could not stand his silence any longer, and risked a whispered conversation as they processed past trees that were centuries older than her. “Does my appearance displease you so much, Your Grace? Or am I merely so beautiful as to render you speechless?”

Robb continued to stare straight ahead as he responded. “Truthfully, I am surprised to find you here at all. That you would dress so finely for the wedding of ‘a sinister, traitorous louse and a primitive, tree-worshiping harlot’ is far more remarkable than anything about your person.”

She could not recall saying those exact words, but the lack of Robb’s usual friendly banter made it more likely than not that they were an exact quote. Margaery did her best to wince and appear contrite.

“While I appreciated your attempt at consolation with me, I cannot in good conscience sleep with a woman who thinks so little of my brother and closest friend,” Robb continued, surprising Margaery with the amount of earnestness in his voice. He continued to look straight ahead, occasionally guiding her over a root or around a bramble not meeting her eyes. “I understood that you and Jon did not particularly get along, but I expected better from my wife. If you spent any time at all actually getting to know him, you would see just how unfounded your suspicions are. If you are anything but the pinnacle of politeness at this wedding, expect your bed to remain lonely for the foreseeable future.”

Margaery’s cheeks burned at the slight. He questioned her intelligence and manners in the same breath as he praised the bastard. Clearly she had misinterpreted the feelings of her king in this matter. Part of her wanted to glower at him for even presuming to chastise her. She almost wanted to bed another man out of spite.

Almost.

Another part of her ached to be surrounded in the warmth of the king’s arms once again. To feel his powerful legs pumping between hers, his tongue outlining her stiff nipples…

Margaery resolved to earn her way back into the king’s good graces. This would make it much more difficult to put the wildling bitch in her proper place, but Margaery was clever, and she would see it done.

They breached a small clearing nestled within the dark and ancient wood. Noble men and women dressed in traditional Northern clothes lined a wide, steaming pool at the base of an enormous tree. Blood red leaves blossomed on bone white branches, shading the solemn face carved into the trunk. This was the only the second time Margaery had ever stepped foot into the godswood, the first having been her own wedding, and thus it was the first time she was truly able to observe one of the legendary weirwood trees the Northmen worshiped. It was as impressive as it was terrifying. The images of the Seven were different in every sept, but welcoming smiles and beautiful features were the norm while the hideousness of the Stranger usually remained hooded. The weirwood tree had no such beauty, and the sap-filled eyes pierced through her, seeming to tug apart her soul, seeking her intentions and judging her unworthy to be a bride of house Stark. For the first time, Margaery felt unwelcome in Winterfell.

Robb did not seem to notice her trepidation, and proceeded to lead her near a large, moss-covered rock by the pool. He left her there before approaching the carved face and kneeling in prayer. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Margaery knew that he worshiped the old gods as well as the Seven, but seeing him in silent worship of a tree was disconcerting nonetheless. She was forced to admit that she knew far less about her husband than she had previously thought.

After some time, he stood and took his place just to the right of the great tree trunk. Quiet murmuring broke out when Jon Snow appeared at the path from the entrance. His clothes, however, confirmed that he was a Snow no longer. He wore a fine doublet, similar to Robb’s own, but with the colors inverted. A white direwolf ran across the grey field of his chest, an obvious tribute to the beast that trailed him like a white shadow. The albino creature seemed to have already doubled in size and walked proudly beside his master as they passed through the guests.

Rather than clamor, silence rippled through the gathered guests when Val appeared on the arm of a burly man with a thick white beard dressed in simple furs. She was dressed far more simply than Queen Margaery expected, wearing an unadorned grey woolen dress and her hair loose and straight down her back. Her maiden’s cloak was white with black lines sewn into the image of a leafless weirwood tree, colored only by haunting red eyes. She even wore boots instead of slippers. Margaery almost felt bad for the woman, having only those simple clothes to wear to her own wedding. Of course, the goal in commissioning a gown for herself was now thoroughly accomplished – Margery looked every bit the beautiful and powerful Stark queen, and Val little better than a peasant.

Her dominance asserted, she graced the wildling woman with a brilliant smile as she passed. Val made eye contact with her, but rather than lower her head she merely raised a single eyebrow by an almost imperceptible measure. It was a challenge.

The moment lasted hardly any time at all, but it was enough to fill her mind with black thoughts. These feelings continued to fester when not only Jon, but Robb as well admired Val’s figure as she approached the heart tree.

Queen Margaery paid little attention to the traditional Northern wedding, the second she had ever attended. It was not because it would not be important for her future – surely it would be, to appease various lords or ladies at some point or another. It was just that the ceremony itself was just so simple, she could think about almost anything else while gathering all of the information she needed to know of weddings before the old gods from an onlooker’s point of view. Instead, she appraised her opponents. Val moved with an easy grace, as though she were born and raised a highborn lady rather than one of the rabble living in a stick-and-hide tent. Jon _Frost_ wore his nobility no different than he had his bastardry – his face was solemn, despite marrying a comely woman, and his shoulders slouched as though he expected reproach at any moment. She would say this of Jon: he always deferred to her husband.

Soon enough, it was over, and the royal couple led the married couple and the rest of the guests to the Great Hall for the celebration feast. As men and women came to congratulate the bride and groom, Margaery prepared herself for the night’s entertainment – only to be severely disappointed. Northmen were many things, but subtlety was lost on them. Lords, of course, and even ladies praised Val as the most beautiful woman at the feast. Not Queen Margaery, elaborated in Stark colors and finery, but Val, in simple grey wool, hardly better than rags.

“Lady Val, your hair is simply captivating…”

“Why is it your folk stole our girls, if those north of the Wall look like you?”

“Lady Frost, who made you that dress? I simply must have one.”

Queen Margaery looked up at the last one. The familiar, squeaky-high voice came from the mouth of one of her own handmaidens, Wylla Manderly. _Traitor. I cannot believe I trusted her taste in clothing_.

The bedding came soon enough, although Margaery had little faith that there would be anything on the wedding sheets come morning to prove the lady’s virtue. Val delighted far too much in the process of being stripped and carried away for her to have come to the marriage bed a maiden, even if she had abstained from fornicating with Jon – something Margaery thought was highly unlikely, given their respective barbarism and bastardry. She of course refrained from taking part in the celebration herself, having no desire to see or feel the bastard’s body, but upon later reflection she suspected that spurn to be the main reason why she once again slept in an otherwise empty bed.

 

\\._.-~.^.~-._./

 

The next morning, Margaery arrived at her usual breakfast with the dowager queen. Or at least, she intended to, until she noticed a third place setting at the married women’s table in the queen’s solar. Before she could find a servant to correct the error, her wildling nemesis made her appearance.

Val strode into the solar with confidence and an annoying amount of poise, all while looking like the cat who caught the canary – no doubt from her sudden, dramatic, and altogether inappropriate rise from a brute to a landed lady. She sat down at the table and made a clear deferment to Queen Margaery for a subject of conversation. The fact that she was versed in social graces somehow made her all the more infuriating.

“Did you enjoy your wedding night, Lady Frost? I hope your husband was not terribly brutal,” she asked the woman with a smile that could kill small rodents.

“My husband was only as brutal as I asked him to be, Your Grace,” Val responded without missing a beat. “I expect to be sore for quite some time. It is a lovely feeling.”

Margaery choked on her porridge. Grandmother had warned her how brutish some men could be. Most were only concerned with taking their own pleasure, and cared little for the comforts of women. Worse were the violent ones, who would cause bruised thighs or sometimes bloody ones from lack of lubrication. Robb had been different, so far at least, always concerned for her pleasure as much as his own. She experienced equal measures delight and disgust upon learning that Jon Frost had been rough with her. Val could only be lying to say she enjoyed such uncouth treatment, but it was a shocking lie to say over breakfast.

“Quite,” Margaery managed to choke out impassively. “When will your people be setting out for your new home?”

“Most of my folk will be departing with Tormund over the next few days. They are camped along the Long Lake north of here, so you needn’t worry about them passing through Winterfell,” Val replied casually with a sip of her tea. “Not that you would have been out of your rooms long enough to notice their presence if they _were_ nearby.”

“Oh come now, sweet Val – I may call you Val, I presume? The odor of such a large number of wildlings could be smelt leagues away, so I might still notice them yet,” was the best retort Margaery could come up with on such short notice.

They continued like this for some time, trading gentle barbs and scathing compliments back and forth. Margaery suspected it could have gone on for hours, had they not been interrupted by the third married lady in the castle.

The dowager queen was announced into the room, but stopped in the portal as surely as if the door had been slammed in her face. The face of dowager queen Catelyn Stark was completely expressionless, as though her heart were made of stone. “It is you, then?”

“I suppose so,” was Val’s non-committal reply.

“Why did Rattleshirt murder my husband?”

Silence smothered everything in the room, dragging what few remaining comforts were to be experienced therein down through the mortared stone floor.

The newest lady in the North did not respond for a long moment, but maintained eye contact with the dowager queen the entire time. Eventually, an answer came forth. “The Lord of Bones was a great leader among my people, Your Grace. When the last King Beyond the Wall died, it was Rattleshirt who kept us united with his words and skill at arms, and we were stronger because of it. But he was also cruel, and he had not the ingenuity required to manage all of us together as Mance once did. He moved us away from what productive fields we had to escape the winter winds, but this created a terrible food shortage. The children died quicker than most… Too many mouths too concentrated for the sparse lands of the Haunted Wood. When tribes or bands sought better pastures for their herds, he ordered his men to cut them down, fearing they would come back later to usurp his power. He wanted to conquer his own land south of the Wall, where Mance had wanted to make a pact with the Stark in Winterfell. Rattleshirt killed your husband because he was a fucking idiot, Your Grace, and not a few of us were glad to see Jon cut off his tyrannical head.”

A single tear fell out of the dowager queen’s river-blue eye. “If my Ned had known how bad your famine was, he would have guided you across the Wall himself.”

“I knew that, Your Grace. We all grew up hearing stories about the Quiet Wolf of Winterfell,” Val said, pausing politely as the dowager queen gasped at the use of an epithet Margaery had heard only in passing back in the Reach. “Older kings here in the south surely would have strung us up by our necks across the length of the Wall rather than grant us passage, but too many Free Folk had heard stories of the benevolence of King Eddard to truly buy into Rattleshirt’s ramblings.”

More tears began to flow freely down the previously impassive, regal face of Catelyn Stark. “And what comfort does that provide me? If so many knew my Ned would have let them through, why did you allow such a senseless attack to ever occur? Why did you murder my husband!?”

Val stood upon hearing this, and was half-way to the dowager queen before Margaery noticed that she carried her meat knife in hand. “Good-mother!” she cried in alarm, but it was already too late. She winced as Val brought the knife up –

And placed it hilt first in Catelyn Stark’s shaking palm. When the grief stricken woman only stared at her in shock, Val helpfully closed the dowager queen’s gloved hand around the grip.

“I cannot bring your husband back, Your Grace,” Val said to her, barely above a whisper. “Nor can I begin to imagine what you must think of my people – or myself for that matter, after I have married a man you so clearly despise. If it will truly cure you of your pain, or if you believe that I have no right to walk this land for any other reason, no matter how banal, slit my throat now and be done with it.”

“I – but, I…” the widow stammered, dumbly.

“ _Lady Frost!_ ” Margaery shouted, “I will have your head for baring live steel in the presence of a queen–”

“That will not be necessary, good-daughter,” the dowager queen replied, looking more focused than she had been in quite some time as she stared at the sharp blade in her hand. “While I would never forgive the Free Folk, my late husband would have. He pardoned the barons who rose with Roose Bolton, despite all they did to his father and siblings, because he did not believe that he could hold them accountable for the actions of a mad man.” She looked up a Val, and Margaery gasped at how young she appeared now, a decade of worry-lines and wrinkles slipping away. “I will not shame his memory by taking your life out of some misguided grief. I will never love you, Lady Frost, but I will do my best not to hate you.”

Margaery’s ochre eyes widened as she listened. She idly hoped that she was having a stroke and that her ears could only perceive nonsense – surely that was better than the truth, that her greatest ally against the intruder was changing cloaks.

“That is good of you,” the blonde woman replied. “Hate weighs heavily upon the heart. I only learned that lesson at terrible cost.” She shook her head, physically dismissing the topic. “But enough of this dour talk, Your Grace. You must join Queen Margaery and myself for breakfast. We were having such a delightful conversation,” she finished with what must have passed as an endearing smirk.

“Yes… yes, I think I shall,” the dowager queen said. “I find myself suddenly famished.”

Queen Margaery did not enjoy the remainder of her breakfast. Val at first lead the conversation, but it became readily apparent that the dowager queen was enjoying it just as much. Margaery could not believe how quickly they seemed to bond, and found herself for once powerless to intercede. How could she, when Catelyn Stark looked more alive than she had in months, and seemed to finally be healing?

The queen could tell when she was superfluous. The loss of her greatest potential ally necessitated that others be recruited to the cause. She used her pleasantries and dismissed herself from breakfast early.

For the first time in days, Queen Margaery decided to join her ladies for the morning sewing and mending. To her consternation, only two of her girls were waiting. Princess Sansa sat daintily in a stool with her gentle grey direwolf – Lady, she thought she recalled – at her feet, while Alys Karstark sat opposed working on some project or another. The girl gathered one of her brother’s tattered shirts and –

_No. No!_

“Lady Alys… whatever happened to your hair?” the queen managed, trying her best not to sound scandalized but likely failing in that endeavor too.

The thin, kindhearted girl smiled in response, her hair in one long, thick braid over her shoulder rather than her previously preferred stylish loops and twists. “Lady Val was kind enough to introduce me to this style, Your Grace. It feels ever so much better on my scalp, and I can dress much more quickly in the mornings as well!” she said, voice dripping with cheerfulness.

Margaery could not believe that this sweet girl had the gall to say such a thing in her presence. She turned to Sansa for support, but stopped short when she noticed that the princess had nearly the same style, modified only with some smaller braids across her forehead. The queen’s mouth likely did something far too much like gaping.

“There can be astounding beauty in simplicity at times, do you not agree good-sister?” Sansa suggested with a shy smile.

Margaery colored at the jab – however unintentional it had likely been, as there was hardly a cruel bone in Sansa’s body. _First the mother, and now the daughter – and Lady Alys as well. Surely someone must understand…_

“Of course,” she managed to spit out. Alys flinched as if struck. Margaery felt a desperate need to change the subject. “What might be occupying my other ladies?”

Sansa blushed lightly as she reported Wylla Manderly’s intentions to pursue Harrion Karstark for a walk along the battlements.

“That is excellent!” Margaery declared. The younger Manderly girl had a wild streak in her when it came to young men, but it was a vice the queen could understand, and even appreciate. “Would they make a good match, Lady Alys?”

“I should think so, Your Grace,” Alys replied while returning her focus back to her sewing. “Harry was always more nervous around girls than Torr or Ed, despite being the heir. Wylla is so understanding and cheerful though, I’m sure she would be just what he needs. She has tried before with letters, and she even got him to dance once at a feast, but she feels very confident that today she will finally win his heart.”

“They sound as though they would be lovely together,” Margaery said. She sat, gathering some grey thread and passing it through the needle eye, finally ready to settle down mending while knowing that at least one of her handmaidens was acting respectably. “But I have to ask, what has changed to make him less nervous, or her surer of her success?”

“W-Well…” Alys stuttered as she stared intently at her long fingers, which had stopped their fine work. A quick inspection revealed that Sansa, whose cheeks had been a pleasant shade of pink before, now glowed as fiery red as her hair.

 _Out with it!_ “Well, what?”

“Well, after talking it over with… Lady Frost…” Alys said with a gulp, obviously preparing herself for some great confession, “she decided to _steal_ Harry. But, before you become upset, please know I thought this through before I condoned her plan!” The daughter of Karhold appeared quite panicked now. “Father had discussed such a match with Lord Wyman before, but he had been holding off on a formal offer from one of the Stark daughters, but I honestly think Wylla would be a better fit for him than Princess Arya, and, and…” she trailed off with a wince, as though expecting some great punishment.

Margaery was perplexed. “You speak of Lady Wylla’s plans as though a match is guaranteed to result from it. Surely there will be time for the formalities to be arranged before anything becomes final?” As an afterthought, she added, “And what do you mean, ‘steal’ him?”

Lady Alys remained silent.

“It will be rather final, I imagine, good-sister,” Sansa replied, raising her auburn eyebrows in the way that one does when discussing a cheerful scandal. “Stealing is how the wildlings marry, although our hope is that Wylla gets brought under the heart tree tomorrow to make it more official.”

Margaery did her best to keep her face blank. “I see. So when you say ‘steal’…”

“The plan was to hold a dagger up to his throat until he agrees to… _lie_ with her…” Sansa giggled. “But I don’t think it will take that much convincing. As Alys said, we think them a good match. He just needs a little prompting!”

The thought that sweet Wylla would do such a thing was terrible, and yet not terribly surprising. The girl was eager to find a husband, and frequently requested explicit tails of Margaery’s own married life when it was just the two of them. In all likelihood, she would make Harrion Karstark very happy, in the way all men are happy to see fresh cunt. Margaery could only hope that Wylla would not regret her decision.

She remained silent for the rest of her time in the sewing room. Sansa and Alys were clearly embarrassed to have spoken so inappropriately in her presence, and Margaery was not about to allow them to think she condoned such behavior amongst her ladies in waiting. Eventually she had to give up her sewing as a lost cause – the stitches were crooked and messy, and would have to be redone at a later time.

The young queen excused herself, wishing to be alone with her thoughts, barely noticing the direwolf whining at her exit. She resolved to head to the library tower, a part of the castle she had explored only once with Robb, which had involved a particularly good romp on top of a desk. The memory would help her focus, surely.

A cold wind had blown in from across the northern moors overnight, leaving the courtyard much too chilly to pass through without fetching a cloak. Margaery decided to avoid it altogether by taking the indoor path over the covered bridge to the armory, through the guest hall, and along one of the inner walls to the tower’s rear entrance.

Susurrations of whisper rose to meet her ears in the loft of the armory building as she crossed the wooden walkway within, connecting it to the guest house. Hushed tones were the sure sign of a secret exchange, which peaked Margaery’s interest considerably. Secrets were only dangerous if you did not know them, grandmother had said, so she immediately quieted her footsteps and squatted in a corner to assure that she could not be seen before focusing her attentions on the soft conversation below.

“…you see all she has done? She has been nothing but a prissy bitch since she arrived,” said a vaguely familiar female voice.

“I am sure there is a reasonable explanation for her behavior,” a man’s voice countered, smooth and assuaging. “This place is still new to her, and she has yet to learn what is expected of a woman of her station here.”

While she could not be sure, it sounded as though the couple were discussing the newly appointed Lady Frost. _Perhaps I have some allies in the North after all._

“That is no excuse for the way she treats the king!” the woman rebutted, so loud it was near a mummer’s whisper in volume. “You see how miserable he is now. You know this cannot go on.”

“The king has assured me that he has the situation in hand. Who are you to question his decisions?”

“I’m one of her ladies in waiting! I’ve seen how she behaves when he is not around. We have all seen it. He does not realize how cruel she can be, how heartless and false her sentiments are to those in whom she sees no value.”

A cold sweat broke out on Margaery’s brow, and her heart began to flutter inside of her like a small bird trying to rip its way out of her breast.

“But I don’t expect the king to listen to me,” the woman continued, “especially when he is so disgustingly smitten. That’s why I need you to talk some sense into him. If anyone can convince him to set that scheming cunt aside, it would be his beloved brother.”

“Bastard brother,” the man corrected, “and I refuse to believe Queen Margaery has done anything with truly malicious intent. She was raised a southron princess and is only trying to make Winterfell more like her home. She wants to belong here, and that I cannot begrudge anyone.”

“But Jon –”

“Enough Lyra! I will hear no more of this. It is treason that you speak, and I will not tolerate treason or libel against my king or those he loves, including his wife. If I hear another word of this matter, from you or anyone else, I will have no choice but to have you expelled from court,” he said with an air of finality.

With that Jon Sn– _Frost, Lord Jon Frost_ , walked away, leaving a frustrated Lyra Mormont to huff in exasperation before storming out behind him.

As soon as the building was empty, Margaery stood up on shaking legs and ran, through the corridor of the second story of the guest house and across an internal battlement into the library tower, up the spiraling staircase, and finally into the library itself. She threw herself across her favorite desk and fought against the tears forming behind her eyes.

Thoughts stormed across the landscape of her mind, howling like the winds of that terrible blizzard from her childhood, when all was at its darkest and the enemy stymied any hope of escape or relief. Each thought battered its way to the forefront for fractions of a moment before being shoved aside by yet another, an endless torrent of images and feelings and designs and worries.

 _…nothing but a prissy bitch – we have all seen it – the king is miserable, and it’s because – Jon was the one who defended my – far more remarkable than anything about your person – she wants to belong here – Robb’s warm gaze turned icy at her appearance – my brother and closest friend – I will do my best not to hate you – those he loves, including his wife_ –

A single tear finally escaped, rolling its way down her cheek and blotting against a piece of parchment resting on the desk. Margaery choked back the sob in her throat and sat up into the straight-backed reading chair.

She had been wrong. Everything was wrong. The bedclothes, the dresses, the court, the wedding… Her treatment of Jon. Likely her treatment of his lady wife as well, for she had never truly given her a chance. It was a wonder Robb loved her at all.

_But he loves me, his wife. He loves me._

Margaery had not realized how important that was, how much she truly desired it, until she heard the words. Even if she had to hear them from Jon Frost, rather than her husband’s own sweet lips. It was her own fault the he would not have told her yet; she had acted so monstrously toward him. And his retainers. And his family. She could hardly blame him for keeping something so dear and personal to himself when she had done all she could to sabotage his beloved brother’s happiness.

_I must apologize to him. I have to let him know… that…_

But before she could expect Robb to forgive her, she would have to show that she had changed. She would need to do what might be the hardest thing she had ever attempted. She would have to apologize to Jon, and to Val.

 

\\._.-~.^.~-._./

 

Margaery began her project for restitution that evening by inviting Lady Lyra Mormont to her solar after dinner. She still dined alone in her rooms, too embarrassed to sit next to her husband and amongst his peers after all of the snobbery she had put them through. The next time she returned to the Great Hall, it would be on her husband’s arm with his goodwill and warm hand at her back.

The lady in question entered her solar much later than would be polite for an invitation to join a queen, but this was to be expected. Of all the ladies called to be Margaery’s companions in the North, Lyra was the one she had been most hostile toward, and the one who had the least tolerance for her misguided attempts at behavioral correction. Not to mention the one loyal enough to the king to risk treason.

Lyra was squat and thick with muscled arms offset by a round but pretty young face. The rest of her appearance did nothing to augment her innate beauty – her hair was split down the middle into two simple plaits on the side of her head, and she wore furs over leather and breeches. She did not introduce herself when she entered, although she did do a mockery of a curtsey, the minimum necessary while claiming to make attempts at being polite.

“Please Lady Lyra, sit,” Margaery sat, patting an area on her padded bench by the hearth. “I have mulled wine, if you would like some.” She raised the goblet in question up, and was grateful that Lyra at least took the peace offering for what it was. The lady took a gulp from it and proceeded to glower at the fire.

“I asked you here for two reasons, Lyra,” Margaery started. “The first will be the hardest for me to say, so if you will please bear with me… I have been terribly rude to you ever since I arrived.”

This caught the young woman’s attention, and she finally turned her head to appraise her queen. Hopefully the changes she had made to her appearance were noticed. Margaery had slipped out of her fine southron-styled gown, which would have been popular and beautiful in Highgarden, but had appeared garish and frivolous here in Winterfell. She now wore a simple Northern dress, made with thicker material and cut more conservatively for the cooler weather.

“I realize now that I know almost nothing about you, or your family, other than the basic details, and I have judged you harshly for something that was out of your control. If your mother had not fought at Oldtown, it might still be held by the Ironborn today. While your family raises ladies in a different fashion than we did back home, you are no less good or noble, and I have done you and your family a terrible dishonor by slighting you,” Margaery said, keeping her eyes unwavering from Lyra’s. “And so I wish to apologize. Whatever it is that is in my power as Queen in the North is yours to receive. You may request a boon from me at any time. I swear it on the Seven, and the old gods as well.”

The Mormont lady looked at her as though she had grown a second head. “I do not know what to say, Your Grace,” she eventually stuttered out. “I didn’t expect to hear something like that from you. May I ask what prompted your change of heart?”

“You may not,” she replied sternly, before allowing a meek smile. “A lady must keep _some_ of her secrets, do you not agree?”

That drew a smirk from the young warrior woman, reserved but present nonetheless. “As you will, Your Grace. And what was the second topic you wished to discuss with me?”

“Our activities together. Your talents are wasted in the sewing room, and I will no longer require you to attend,” she said. “Instead, I would like to meet with you in private for some small amount of time every day, so that you might teach me how to defend myself.”

“You don’t have the physique to wield a mace, Your Grace,” Lyra said while raising a skeptical eyebrow.

“Any weapon you think more suited to me would do. Perhaps something I could conceal in my skirts,” Margaery clarified. “Truly, whatever you think is best. You are far more knowledgeable about these things than I could ever hope to be, and so I defer to your expert opinion. And please, you are my lady in waiting. Simply Margaery will do in small gatherings such as this one.”

Lyra continued to look as though she thought this conversation was nothing more than a strange dream, but acceded to the plan. The two shared another cup of mulled wine before retiring for the evening, Lyra to her own chambers and Margaery to her bed. She still had her smooth southron bedclothes – _not everything about the south is bad, and in spring and summer I do not see why I cannot indulge in small pleasures_ – and although her husband once again did not call upon her that night, she no longer felt quite as desperate for him. He loved her, and she would have him back in her arms and between her thighs soon enough.

 

\\._.-~.^.~-._./

 

The Northern queen had asked her attendants to wake her early. It was the first time in recent memory she was out of bed and dressed before the sun had escaped the horizon. She could not see it directly as she walked across the bailey toward the armory, but its soft light perfused the already bustling castle and brightened her mood nonetheless. Today was the day she would set things to rights, and she would not let anything stop her.

It had only taken a passive ear to discern that Jon Frost was among the earliest risers in Winterfell, and that he would frequently be the first man in the yard practicing his forms and footwork. Sure enough, Margaery was able to find him as he finished adjusting his hauberk and pads. His eerie white direwolf stared at her as she approached, tracking her with blood red eyes, but it appeared more curious than threatening.

“Lord Frost, might I have a moment of your time before you begin your morning exercises?” she asked.

He looked at her and nodded while answering with a formal “Of course, Your Grace.” Margaery noted that while his face remained guarded, his tone was neutral and he did not appear anxious or even suspicious of her motives. It was startling to realize that he had likely never been truly malicious toward her, and that she had projected so much of her own anger and resentment onto him.

The king’s brother led her to a corner of the bailey, in view of the yard but secluded by distance so that they would not be easily overheard. She could not have picked a better spot herself.

“What is it that you wished to discuss, Your Grace?” he asked. To her dismay, he appeared to be steeling himself for whatever nastiness her reputation suggested she might subject him to. It was only the second conversation she had ever initiated with him, after all, and last time she had convinced him to march to his death.

“I wanted to thank you, my lord,” Margaery said, pushing onward before her nerves got the best of her. “You kept Robb out of danger and avenged my good-father’s murder. I know you did not do this for me, and I have behaved atrociously at your victory despite forcing the task on you in the first place, but I have since recognized how terribly I have misjudged you and I wanted you to know that I see now all that you have done for my husband. I shall never doubt your loyalty again, and although I do not expect it of you, I should like it if you would forgive me my doubts.” She bowed her head as she finished her loquacious emesis, sofmething certainly not expected of a queen even during an apology. She needed him to know that she was sincere.

“There is nothing to forgive, Your Grace,” Jon replied, visibly relaxing. “Trust isn’t something that should be given freely, it must be earned. I’ve paid more to earn it all my life than most, being a king’s bastard. I don’t expect it, as a rule, and you only wanted what was best for my brother. Certainly that was not ill done.”

Somehow his easy concession made Margaery feel even worse about the whole affair. “It is I who have done nothing to earn _your_ trust, Jon. I have in fact betrayed it. I made it no secret to Robb that I was against your marriage from the beginning. Surely there is something I must do to make things right between us,” she said.

“All I ask is that you take care of Robb once I have moved to my new home. He feels terrible spurning you, but for whatever reason he thinks it is necessary,” Jon said. “It’s his trust you need to win back, not mine.”

“But that is the problem, you see. He spurns me because I have mistreated you and your lady wife. As ashamed as I am to admit it, I will need help from the both of you to convince him that my change of heart is sincere.”

An easy smile crept across Jon’s face. “Then I will do whatever you think is best to prove it to him. I honestly do think you two are better off with each other around. Gods know Robb isn’t nearly as insufferable after he’s shared your bed.”

Margaery giggled, something she had not done in years.

“Your challenge will be convincing Val. She’s a devious woman, Your Grace, and… she is not overly fond of you,” Jon said, flushing and looking away. “Don’t underestimate her. I mean it.”

“I do not plan to,” she replied. “I would like to see her sooner rather than later. Do you know where she is now?”

“Not exactly, but I’m sure Ghost could show you the way,” he said, with a visual command to his animal. “Ghost! Val. Go!”

After thanking him once again for his kindness, she set off after the white wolf. It was now the size of one of Willas’s full grown hounds, and it seemed at least as intelligent, perhaps even more so. If she fell too far behind for its liking, it would look back for her and wait. The albino beast eventually led her into the godswood, although not along the usual path to the weirwood. She began to hear grunts and hard snaps of wood against wood, which was clarified when she breeched a clearing.

Princess Arya stood in the center of the glade with a long wooden haft held stiff in her hands. Try as she might, she could only block one in every three of the blows delivered to her by the Lady Frost.

A final _crack_ echoed against the ancient trees.

“Bloody buggering candle fondler!” Arya shouted, dropping her weapon and shaking her hand away from her body. “Stupid bloody… _shit_!”

“That’s what happens when your grip is too tight,” the blonde warrior said to her trainee. When she looked up at Margaery, it was clearly an afterthought. “And to what do we owe for the pleasure of your company, Your Grace?”

Arya jumped with a yelp and grew even paler than her usually fair complexion. “Margaery! I didn’t mean to say those things, I – I heard them from Jory snapping at Donys once, is all, Jon had _nothing_ to do with it, I swear, and… please don’t tell my mother I was doing this! I swear I’ll sew with you as often as you want, I’ll even try to get along with Sansa!”

Margaery smiled at her. “Your secret is safe with me, Arya. Around me, you may curse whenever you like, as long as no one else is bothered by it.”

“Oh good, I was worried that… Wait, what? I thought ladies and queens couldn’t say words like that?”

“There is a lot more to being a lady than being polite, princess. I can tell you all about it sometime later, if you wish. But right now I do need to be polite with your instructor, if you would not mind letting us have a moment.”

“Yeah, that’s fine I guess,” Arya said with a dazed look on her face. “Umm… I’ll just go sneak into the smithy for a bit then. I’ll be sure to practice more before tomorrow too Val, I promise!”

With that the younger Stark princess scrambled out of the clearing, darting back in only momentarily to grab her headless spear.

“Let’s be truthful here Your Grace, you’ve never been polite with me, and there is no need for you to start now,” Val bit out at her when Arya was well out of earshot. Ghost spun in a circle before sitting down next to Margaery, and she appreciated his silent endorsement.

“You are absolutely right Lady Frost, I have not been good to you at all. But I want to start, so please call me Margaery from now on. We are good-sisters, in a way, and I want to have a fresh start in getting to know you,” Margaery said, hoping she did not sound too plaintive.

Val stared her down. “What, you think you can just sweep aside what’s happened between us? You belittled me on my first meeting with the king, you dressed like a whore at my wedding, and you’ve terrified the Karstark girl into thinking that she will be shamed into a bad marriage because of what I did to her hair.”

“I did all those things, yes.” Margaery’s cheeks burned, but she pressed on, committed to her choice. “But I realized yesterday how stupid I was being and how horrible I must have been to everybody here. I truly do wish to make amends, especially with the wife of my husband’s closest friend. I have already made my peace with Jon, to which I am sure Ghost here can attest.”

The direwolf in question started panting in response, and its tail swished softly through the duff.

“The friend you sent to die?” Val spat. Margaery could feel her pulse skip a beat. “Oh, don’t gape at me like that. Jon told me how it was that _he_ was sent out to find us instead of the king himself. Did you explain to him in your apology that it was actually an attempted murder?”

The Queen in the North could not bring herself to respond. She was working too hard to suppress her anger to say anything at all coherent.

“So you didn’t,” Val surmised, crossing her arms. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that you did. Jon has a prettier face than Robb, and he’s hung like a stallion. And while I’m sure it wouldn’t have bothered me for long, I would have felt _some_ pity for you after I’d stolen Robb if he had been the one to find us.”

The smirk the blonde warrior gave could cut glass. “Wouldn’t that have been something. I could have come into your home carrying your husband’s child… His first one, if the scent of tansy on your breath at our first meeting meant anything. Not the smartest move, murdering your babies. If you go too long without one he’ll be forced to set you aside. Winter’s breath, if I were to tell him now…”

For the first time in her life, Margaery found herself completely outmaneuvered. “What do you want, you horrible bitch?” she asked, her voice weak with all the desperation that she felt, all prior anger having been ripped out of her.

The blonde beauty planted herself within a hair’s width of her face while lodging her spear butt into the ground. “I want honesty. Why did you do it? Are you hiding an affair? Hoping the child doesn’t come out saying ‘Hodor’?”

“…Because I like fucking,” she whispered.

“Who?”

“Robb,” she said softly.

“And…?”

“Robb, only Robb! Because I like fucking Robb!” she shouted.

At Val’s incredulous glare, she screamed. “I don’t want him leaving my bed for some harlot when I’m fat with child! I want him to be mine and to keep fucking me, and I don’t want to become some fat cow. I want my body to be my own for as long as I can keep it before I give it up for our children! And yes, I do want children eventually, but _I’ll_ be the one to decide when that happens. So there it is, I’m wanton. I’m a slut! That is my great secret. Are you satisfied?”

Val leaned away to the side, resting her weight against her weapon. The space had a calming effect on Margaery’s tumultuous thoughts. She forced herself to exhale.

“Robb loves me, and I him although he does not yet know it,” the queen admitted. “I have wronged him by wronging you, and I truly did come here to ask for your forgiveness. It is the only way he will take me back, and after my conversations with Lyra and Jon I even thought we might even get to be… friends…” Tears burned in hot streaks down her face, and snot leaked out of her nose down into her mouth. “What do you want? What must I do to convince you?”

The wildling-turned-noblewoman contemplated her question for quite some time. Margaery maintained eye contact as much as she could, although she did have to rub her puffy eyes against her sleeve.

“I can understand your desires. You’d be mad not to like fucking,” Val finally stated. “I can understand why you disliked Jon and I on sight, after he explained to me what a bastard meant to you southerners and your inheritance customs. I can even understand deciding for yourself when your children will come. It’s a very Free Folk thing to do.

“What I have a hard time believing is that Robb is _that_ good in bed.”

The queen could not believe what she was hearing. “That is your objection? _That_ is what I have to prove to you for your endorsement?”

Val considered for a moment, then nodded. “Yes. That’s what I would need to know to ensure you’re being honest. Any man’s cock is nice enough, but I wouldn’t believe that a finely bred southron woman like you would go to such lengths to keep getting it from the same person when the alternative is that you could have anyone you wanted. So unless you prove to me otherwise, I have to assume that you are lying and hiding an affair from the king.”

“But I am not!” Margaery protested. “And it is a ridiculous statement in the first place. How could I possibly prove that Robb fucks me better than anyone else ever could?”

“I would need to see you two going at it, of course. The Free Folk fuck in front of each other all the time, we don’t have these fancy castle walls to separate ourselves from each other,” Val replied, brushing her long blonde braid over her shoulder. “If you haven’t noticed, I’m very good at seeing through the lies of you southerners. If you fake it, I’ll know.”

Margaery’s cheeks burned hot with shame and anger. “And how would I know you are not setting an impossible standard? I cannot just take your word for it, if you do not trust me.”

She then had a wicked realization, and voiced it mainly out of spite.

“I can see through your lies as well Lady Val. You claimed yesterday that Jon is a skilled lover – we can use your response to a fucking from him for comparison. If it seems between us that I enjoyed it more…”

Val nodded again. “Fine, that’ll work. I’ll be as impartial as I can, you have my word on that. I’ll even convince the boys for you. I’ll let your husband know that we’ve come to an agreement, so he’ll cooperate. But know that if I think you have lied, that you’re actually betraying King Robb… well, I won’t tell him because that’s not my place, but I would tell Jon.” She left the rest of the threat unspoken.

“Very well,” Margaery sighed. She felt as though she had just been through a joust, hit by every competitor in turn before she could even raise a lance. “Jon was right, I did underestimate you.”

“Everyone makes mistakes,” Val replied, grey eyes crinkling and the corners of her mouth pulling up just enough to form a smile. “I underestimated you, too. I didn’t think you’d have the balls to go through with this. We’ll meet up tonight, after the wedding banquet for the Karstark lordling.”

She hefted her training spear out of the detritus and marched back along the path to the castle proper. “Come on Arya, we must look presentable so your mother doesn’t know what we were doing,” she said as she passed a nearby ironwood tree.

“Coming Val!” the exuberant nearly-flowered ten year old girl replied as she bounded down the trail after her. “By the way, what does ‘fucking’ mean?”

Margaery whisked off after her. She had damage control to do before Arya got _entirely_ the wrong perspective on sex.

 

\\._.-~.^.~-._./

 

It was likely her imagination, but the weirwood tree at the heart of Winterfell’s godswood no longer seemed threatening. It had only been two days since she had last seen it, but the blood-red eyes now appeared sad rather than angry, staring through the clearing in a far off way common among those grieving loved ones lost. Regardless, it no longer dissected Margaery’s conscience, and for the first time she could see how such a peaceful place could provide comfort in hard times.

The wedding was beautiful. Neither family had been expecting a wedding to come at the end of their recent campaign, but Margaery’s household ladies were well-practiced in wedding cloaks after the Frost affair. The merman of House Manderly had a scrunched face, but this was of little importance after the maiden cloak was exchanged for the white sun burst of House Karstark.

Despite the indignant glares Ser Wylis Manderly directed to Harrion Karstark, it was an extraordinary marriage for a second daughter, and Rickard Karstarks appeasing shoulder slaps and promises of far northern mead appeased his anger at his daughter’s perceived dishonor.

They day had been made all the better when Robb had arrived at her chambers to escort her to the ceremony.

“Margeary, I –” he started, but was forced to wait as she seized his face and pulled his lips against hers, quickly insinuating her tongue into his mouth. Their kiss was not the chaste joining of lips they performed as greetings, but the passionate communication of feelings that they typically reserved for particularly enthusiastic fucking.

“Gods,” Robb exclaimed when he pulled away at last. “I missed you so much.”

“And I missed you, dearheart,” she replied. “I am sorry I was so stubborn, you were absolutely right about Jon, and I was such an arse to him and you and –”

“Hush,” he said as he placed a gentle finger pad against her mouth. “We both have apologies to make. But, we have a wedding to attend, and we must look presentable.” He flashed her a winning grin, but his cheeks blushed the same deep red color Sansa’s sometimes turned. “Val explained to me your plan to celebrate the new friendship between you… and while I’m surprised at your willingness to embrace the customs of the Free Folk, I have to admit that I also find the idea… exciting. I trust that we will have plenty of time to get re-acquainted with each other then, and afterwards.”

Margaery beamed at him. “Yes Robb, as much time as we want. I cannot wait to be with you again,” she gushed. _How in the seven hells did she convince him so easily?_ She regretted not spending more time to establish a believable cover story for their endeavor, as she would now have to be vague enough not to contradict anything that might have been said.

He held her tightly in an embrace for another moment, and she drew as much strength from his warmth as she could. Despite her efforts to maintain a calm outward appearance, the arrangements for the evening had had her heart fluttering beneath her breast all day. She was not sure whether to be relieved or concerned that Robb was so easily talked into public sex by a woman he barely knew, but everything felt lighter with the knowledge that they would be going through the experience together.

For the rest of the evening she would catch him periodically flushed, prompting her to raise her eyebrows at him in a teasing smirk, to which he would respond with a crooked smile. His nerves were also reassuring, probably more than anything else.

She tried to limit the amount of wine she drank at the wedding feast, wanting to keep her faculties about her for the night to come. Despite the euphoria she felt as Robb once again held her close to his side, there was still much to lose in the night ahead lest Val ruin everything with her damnably good intentions.

Robb had no such reservations, and was effusive in his celebration of the Karstark heir and his Manderly bride. He sat next to the groom, while Margaery sat away from him near the bride.

“You look beautiful, Wylla,” Margaery gushed in a lull between the couple receiving guests. “And I cannot help but admire how you had your hair set,” she said while running her hand along one of the many intricate blonde braids.

“Thank you, Your Grace,” the bride radiated back. “Alys might sing the praises of her simple braid, but I think there is something to be said for making an impression, and your southron styles are the kind of beauty I want to have in my wedding bed.”

The frank admiration in the girl’s tone proved a tonic to Margaery’s soul.

_Just because I am embracing life in the North does not mean I must give up the luxuries of the Reach._

The realization helped Margaery finalize her plans for the evening, and just in time at that.

“To bed with them!” Robb shouted, causing the revelers below to whoop with excitement.

Harrion seemed much more embarrassed than Wylla at being stripped and carried to their chambers, although Margaery decided he had nothing to worry about as she tugged his smallclothes down his legs. She smacked Robb across the shoulder when she saw him palm the Karstark bride’s fleshy arse in the process of depositing her in the wedding chambers, but it was all in jest. The bedding was the best part of every wedding, a way to relieve tensions and jealousies of those gathered, and she and Robb were about to experience a lot more than that of another couple besides.

It was all too soon and not nearly fast enough after that that the king and queen sat in cushioned chairs in front of the hearth of the queen’s chambers. Logs of fragrant wood imported from Essos crackled within, filling the relatively cool spring air with an altogether sensuous aroma. Let it never be said that Queen Margaery Stark failed to impress, even in the most ridiculous of circumstances.

A quiet knock on the chamber door announced the arrival of their guests.

Thin golden satin layers fell across Margaery’s shoulders as she stood to receive them. This was a Dornish gown she had received from her oldest brother’s friend as a wedding gift, and she could not think of a more appropriate time to debut it to her royal husband. So far, he seemed only pleased.

“Queen Stark,” Jon greeted, bowing slightly in polite deference to her position.

“Please Jon, tonight I am only Margaery. We need not stand on formalities. We will be getting far too… personal for such things very soon, don’t you agree?”

The shy man nodded before escorting Val into the room. Her honey-blonde hair cascaded across the white bearskin cloak she had wrapped tightly around her body.

“I can agree to that. No sense going through all the pleasantries while we rut with each other,” Val said as she walked into the room.

The door was hardly closed and barred before the proud woman stood with her face to the fire and let the cloak slide from her milky-white shoulders, revealing her completely nude figure. Her skin was pale and smooth, with nary a blemish in sight. Wiry muscles slithered across her back as she adjusted her hair, cascading it down to her shoulder blades. In contrast, her hips flared into plump buttocks prominently displayed atop deceptively soft thighs. Despite the amount of time she spent in the training yard, Val certainly maintained a feminine figure.

“Val! Why have–” Jon began, before he was cut off by his wife.

“Hush now, Jon. We will be seeing a lot more of each other very shortly,” she said, a smirk in his direction ensuring that the admonishment was light. “I just wanted to move us past all of the awkward dramatics you southroners employ before a good fucking.”

“Val,” Jon started, smiling in a way Margaery had never seen on the somber man. She had not thought him capable of expressing amusement at all before that moment, honestly. Robb was right, she truly knew nothing over him, and it made her initial judgment all the more terrible. “My kingly brother has gentle ears. Take care not to offend his royal sensibilities.”

The king in question broke out into a boisterous laugh. “Well, I am offended!” he proclaimed, standing up and throwing his own fur cloak onto the rug near Val’s own. “The King in the North will not abide a lady lonely and nude. If my own brother will not strip in solidarity with his wife, I have no recourse but to join her myself!” Without further ado, Robb proceeded to unlace his shirt and breeches with a rapidity that Margaery was only somewhat comforted to note was normal for him when his blood was up.

 _It certainly is up now_. Robb’s cock sprang out from his torso as his breeches were unceremoniously shoved down his legs. It stood longer than her extended hand when fully erect, she knew, exquisitely thick and not nearly as veiny as most other cocks she had seen. It was accompanied by the usual pair of testicles and surrounded by a more unusual fiery red halo of curly hair. Margaery had spent a great deal of time getting to know this cock, and had long ago decided that she quite liked it.

Val looked over her shoulder and eyed Robb’s rock-hard phallus with no small amount of enthusiasm. Robb continued to stare at his half-brother’s wife, but that was understandable – she was the only naked woman in the room.

“How very chivalrous of you, my husband,” Margaery cooed as she sauntered over to his now nude form. The bearded king snapped his head to face her with more speed than a pouncing wolf, and she rewarded him by compressing his prick between their abdomens, hers clad in satin and his naked as a newborn babe. “Would you be so kind as to help another lady in need?” she asked, giving shy glances to her smooth shoulders while swishing her hips side to side, causing the glossy fabric of her dress to slide around his shaft.

The king’s eyes were dilated with lust, and Margaery was left immensely satisfied by the primal growl that escaped his mouth as he peeled her gown down her body. His large, calloused hands groped at the softness of her arms, the swells of her breasts, the pliable sides of her thin waist, and the womanly swell of her hips before finally coming to rest on the globes of her arse. A pool of golden Dornish satin splayed across her feet, leaving her bare to the cool air of the room.

Margaery found herself lost in her husband’s rough affections. _It has been far too long…_ Their mouths connected, his tongue lewdly insinuating itself between her lips as a pretense for his true intentions. He kneaded her pliable buttocks while she drew her hands across his chiseled ones. His growls mingled with her sighs of pleasure, and Margaery could have forgotten they had guests at all had it not been for an interruption in their harmony.

Squelching, slurping noises grew in a gradual crescendo to dominate the solar. Robb withdrew from her mouth to identify the noise, although Margaery had a decent guess as to what was causing it. Turning her head confirmed her theory: Val was kneeling on the bearskin cloak she had worn into the room, fellating her bastard husband with decidedly amateur technique. Jon was not completely naked yet, still trying to remove his shirt, but that had not stopped the wildling beauty from clamping her lips around his cock. His grunts evidenced his approval.

_Is that what she considers good foreplay? Perhaps my secret is safe after all._

Still, a competitive spirit built up within her that she could not suppress, and she was surprised to find herself lacking a desire to do so.

“Lay down, dearheart,” Margaery instructed her husband. “I believe Val could use an example of how this sort of thing is properly done.”

Robb grinned like a child on the first day of spring. “Whatever my queen desires,” he replied. “While I’m sure you are enjoying yourself, Jon, I doubt your wife is as talented at this as mine. Her creativity is simply astounding,” he taunted the other couple as they positioned themselves on the rug in front of the hearth.

Margaery took the compliment in stride as she folded herself into position before him, her body resting on her lower legs between Robb’s thighs. She grasped the base of his cock and felt it throb once into her palm, and by the Seven it was harder than it had ever been before. She set her wet pink tongue to the base and licked upward, using the tip of her little muscle to apply pressure along the soft cord that ran along the bottom of his cock. She was rewarded when a drop of his natural lubrication met her at her husband’s tip, which she quickly stole into her mouth.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Robb groaned out. “Did you see that, Jon?”

Margaery did not bother to wait for Jon’s response. She wanted Robb’s attention focused on _her_. She ran her tongue in circles around the tip of his head, easing the foreskin back bit by bit with each pass. Then, in the middle of one of these slow laps, she plunged the bulbous head past her lips and sucked.

Robb’s response this time was far less articulate, but very powerful all the same. The noises coming from Val’s work next to her stopped. _Perfect._ She passed her tongue up and down the smooth glans in her mouth, and just as Robb’s breathing began to even out, she wiggled her thin tip right up against his opening.

She gave the shaft a few pumps for good measure, pulling her saliva down along his length, then locked eyes with him and pulled the corners of her mouth into a smile. This proved to be too much for her husband, and his seed pulsed into her mouth. Knowing that he would be hard again soon enough, she did what she could to prolong his pleasure, moving her lips back and forth along his shaft and allowing his cockhead to pass against the inside of her cheek. Robb twitched bodily, his toes curling against the furs and his strong fingers curling into her hair to hold her head in place.

When the last shot dribbled into the back of her throat, she pulled her lips up along his shaft and let it go with an audible ‘pop’. _Let’s see Val beat that!_

Robb lay dazed before her, but managed to prop himself up against a sturdy chair. She gave Robb her best tempting smile before curling up in his arms with his stout chest to her back. Sensing her desire, he slid his strong hands down her belly, taking time to appreciate its contours before drawing moisture from her entrance and using it to play with her clit. She relaxed her head against his shoulder, pressed her cheek next to his, and turned her attention to her judge.

The cry she made might have come from her surprise at the other couple’s actions or Robb’s finger reaching in and curling to _just_ the right spot; she could not definitively say which. Jon was now lying on his back, similar to how Robb had been positioned, but rather than Val positioned between his legs, he was positioned between hers. She sat on top of his face, her middle taught as she arched her back in pleasure.

Margaery was forced to grudgingly admit that that _did_ look good. Very good, if Val’s exclamations were anything to be believed.

“Oh Jon, yes!” she growled. “You’re making me so wet! I can’t wait until you take me with that fat cock again… I’m getting so close, get me there! _Jon!_ ”

For the first time that evening, Margaery allowed her eyes to drift to the cock in question. It was no longer covered by a woman’s mouth, but it still glistened in the fire light from its previous encounter. The head was wider than Robb’s, although it might not have been quite as long. It was difficult to tell in the dim light, even at this distance, close enough that she could reach out and caress either one of them if she were so inclined – a direct comparison she was not eager to make.

“…Jon, I have to ask,” her husband said, almost shyly. “Is that… enjoyable?”

Margaery felt a warm thrill dash through her center. Her cunt pulsed around Robb’s fingers.

The bastard gave a final suck on Val’s clit, eliciting a shout, before pulling away to answer. His face was serious in consideration as he replied, “It makes my jaw a bit sore… But it is very much worth the effort, I think.”

“Less talk, Jon. Get back to your lord’s kiss,” Val snapped at him, although there was little force behind it.

“As the lady commands,” he replied before diving between her supple thighs once again, a hand drifting up to tweak Val’s pink nipple.

Robb’s deep voice was gravely with lust as he spoke into her ear. “What do you think, dearheart? Surely a king’s kiss would be better than a lord’s?”

Her loins throbbed at Robb’s suggestion, and before she was sure she had even responded he had positioned her on her back, legs spread wide by his strong hands and her center exposed to his face. The feeling of his tongue tasting her for the first time was foreign, wet and slimy.

She was unsure she liked the sensation at all until he pulled one of her labia between his lips and sucked on it, at which point all doubts escaped her head. “Oh, _fuck_!” she cried, having lost all control at the powerful thrill that shot through her body. When his tongue flicked across the thin ridge within his mouth she wanted to jump out of her skin, but only ended up moaning like an Old Town whore.

“Don’t worry, I plan to,” Robb managed from between her slim thighs. “Thoroughly.”

Robb’s mouth moved around, eventually settling into a random rotation of tonguing her center, licking at her mound, nipping at her inner thighs, and gumming her inner lips. Just as she was better able to regain control of her mental faculties her mind was shattered again, savaged by the bolt of pure pleasure from the pearl at the apex of her cunt as Robb simultaneously sucked on it hard while flicking his tongue across the tip.

An eternity passed before Margaery remembered to breathe once again. She was welcomed back into the world by the sound of clapping.

Val sat askew across Jon’s chest, honey hair gloriously disheveled and a smug smirk across her face.

“Now _that_ sounded like it was fun. Are you sure that was your first time licking at a girl, Robb?”

Margaery returned her attention to her husband, and found his eyes locked to hers and a self-satisfied expression on his pretty face. If he heard Val, he did not show it.

“Gods, Margaery, I need to be inside you –”

And she could not agree more. He grabbed her legs and squeezed them together, throwing her feet over his shoulder before leaning down to kiss her mouth, pressing her legs tight against her breasts in the process.

She could taste herself on his mouth, but before she could process the weirdness of it all her sensorium was dominated by the feeling of his cock finally slipping home within her cunt.

The guttural growl from his throat into her own caused her cunt to clutch at him tighter, and he angled her hips straight up as he began to pound into her.  Margaery could not recall Robb having ever taken her this hard or fast, but the feeling thrilled her, and her cunt was sopping so much from her prior orgasm that rather there was no sensation of stretching or friction, only fullness and a rapid return to the plateau of her pleasure.

“Margaery, you feel incredible! You _are_ incredible! Margaery! Margaery!” her husband groaned above her, baritone shouts of ecstasy.

They parted just enough for Margaery to see into the depths of his river-blue eyes, and in them she saw reflected all the lust and love and longing that she felt. Another peak crashed over her, this one a broad, inevitable wave rather than a sudden crack. Her husband cried out with her, their eyes still locked together as his searing hot seed pulsed deep inside her.

Reaching orgasm together was novel for the both of them, and Robb’s look of wonder paired well with her own astonishment. As they came down from their respective peaks, laughter bubbled out of Margaery like a geyser, and her love joined her laughing on the floor in a tangled mess of limbs and sex.

Their breathing evened out together, chests pressed against each other, but the noise in the room continued. Margaery turned her heavy gaze to the sight of Val on all fours as Jon was mounted on her from behind, taking her like a wolf takes its mate. He had one hand wrapped under her stomach, likely to toy with her bud, while his other hand pulled her hips against his own generating a fleshy smack with every stroke.

Val was clearly enjoying the act, if the well-fucked look on her face was any clue, but when her eyes met her own just for a moment, Margaery knew that she had won. Jon Frost might be an excellent lover, but he had failed to fuck her to the point of distraction as Robb had for her.

“We shall have to try that one as well,” Robb whispered into her ear. Just the sound of him sent a shock of arousal into her groin once again, but she felt raw after the brutal treatment her poor cunt had received.

“Not tonight, my love,” Margaery answered. “But very soon, I agree.”

They continued to watch as Jon pushed Val down onto her stomach and laid his body completely over hers, still tweaking his hips within her. It was some time before Robb noticed what she had said.

“Margaery… you love me? Truly?” he asked, the vulnerability on display a far cry from the wolf king who had just finished writhing within her. He might have claimed her body, but she had just claimed his soul.

“I was too arrogant to realize it until recently, but yes Robb, I do.” She kissed at his neck and jaw line, too embarrassed to look at his face. “Even though I have known we were to be wed since I was eight years old, I never realized how happy you might make me. I was so intent on molding you and Winterfell into my own image of perfection that I failed to notice the amazing life you were making for us yourself.”

She swallowed her pride and ducked her head into the nook of his shoulder, where she felt safe. “I have not been honest with you in everything Robb, and I have done things you will not like. You may even despise me for them, but know that it would not change how I feel about you. I do not deserve someone as understanding as Robb Stark, but I will love him as long as he will have me.”

Robb lifted her chin and kissed the tears gathered at the corners of her eyes before bringing his lips gently against her own.

“We will talk about whatever it is you feel guilty for later, but I do not think anything could change the way I feel about you Margaery. Nothing will ever change that I love you too.”

They caressed each other’s mouths with their tongues, easy and saccharine, until Jon finally made his own release known. Rather than the escalating growls Robb was prone to, Jon signaled his completion by biting Val on the base of her shoulder. Her shout of pleasure signaled their own mutual end.

This was not the life Margaery had envisioned for herself as a girl, making love to her husband next to his bastard brother and a wildling beauty. There was none of the classic southron beauty to be found in their chamber, and at the moment the warm furs along the floor felt much more comfortable than silk sheets ever had. But she had the clarity of thought that could only be brought about by complete honesty, a fresh influence on her ladies and friends by allowing them to influence her in turn, and a husband who loved her unconditionally. The North was wild, and utterly different from the Reach, but as much as she missed her childhood home Margaery realized that she was a child no longer. She was a woman of the North, the Queen of Winter, Her Grace Margaery Stark.

**Author's Note:**

> And there it is folks, the story "with two underused pairings" that I've been teasing since I finished _[Seeds of the Northern Kingdom](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3738322/chapters/8287303)_. I think I'd promised something within a month originally, and here I am posting it over a year and a half later. But better late than never, right?
> 
> The smut/fluff ratio is much lower than I wanted, but I couldn't find it in me to cut anything even though a lot is frivolous non-sense. Hopefully it was still worth the read. With this out of the way and all that smut out of my system, I'll hopefully be able to get back to work on _[The Taming of the Queen](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6018610)._
> 
> There was no beta-reader for this work, so all mistakes are my own. If you find one, let me know and I'll try to polish it away. As always, feedback and constructive criticism are appreciated.


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